In the past, many people relied on education as the way to get a job and make a living. Parents knew that as their children go to school, they would secure a good job. But in this 21 century, people have come to realise that they have in-born potentials that if maximized, they can make a living without necessarily going to school. However, many are still ignorant about the potentials they have and how to maximize them. Companies, industries, and banks are looking for people with skills not necessarily knowledge. Very few people have recognized their skills, potentials and are maximizing it.
What are Potentials? These are those inward gifts, talents which are inside you that need exploitation. Until you maximize your potentials, you will fine it difficult to impact your generation.
How to Maximize your Potentials
Maximizing your potentials to make a living starts by you recognizing your ability as a leader. This is because you want to develop a new thing or make some innovation on some existing things. Maximizing your potentials means doing what only you can do best not necessarily looking at what society have to offer but what you have to offer to the society. Being an effective leader is the first step of maximizing your potentials to make a living. You will need to build your leadership skills. Some of these leadership skills include
You need to have a vision and a goal. Knowing where you are going to and setting goals on how to get there is the first step of maximizing your potentials. For without a vision, one is just playing games with life. This is one of the most important leadership skills you need to maximize your potentials. What is it that you know you can do best? Where do you see yourself in two years or so? What are your goals and which strategies have you in acquiring these goals. Knowing you are a leader, your imagination is one of the most powerful things you possess. So set time to dream about your future, dream big. Like there is a saying that if at a point in your life you are not afraid of your dreams, then you have not started dreaming. Therefore, for you to make a living out of your potentials, you need to know where you are going for it is only through vision that you can reach your goal.
Set goals. Goals are means of attending your vision. Setting goals will help you move towards your dream. Many have big and good dreams but they do not know where to start and their dreams have been lying on the table for ages. This is because they lack leadership skills of goal setting. For you to maximize your potentials and make a living out of that dream, you need to set goals. Goal setting does not only guide you on your way to success, it also guides you to know if you are succeeding or not. Goal setting is taking your dream from the paper and making it a reality. Setting and reaching your goals is a process that begins with a careful and critical consideration of what you want to achieve and the period you intern to achieve, and this requires a lot of hard work and determination. Goal setting at times though seems easy, is very critical. Many have dreams but in setting they have either move contrary to their dreams or set goals that are too difficult to achieve. Here are some simple ways of setting goals.
a) Let your goals be SMART. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time Bound. For you to reach your goal, you must acquire leadership skills of setting SMART goals. Many set goals that they themselves find it difficult to attain. Set SMART goals. Let your goals be specific and well defined. Remember goals are a sign post to reach your goal so you need to set goals that you can easily follow to where you are going. Let your goal setting include dates, time and resources so that you can find it easy to measure. Setting measurable goals will give you chances of celebrating your achievement. Set goals you know you can attain. Do not just follow the crowd but also know what you are capable of doing and set goals that you can attain. However, avoid setting goals that are too easy to attain. Try to challenge yourself by setting a goal that will challenge you to work hard. Let your goals be relevant to your vision and dream. Make sure your goals ties with your dream. Do not plan of accumulating money in the bank meanwhile your dream is to do charity work. With this approach, you cannot reach your goal of doing charity. Set time limit to your goals. Let there be deadlines to your goals for this will help you to know when and when not to act fast. So you need to develop this leadership skill in you to reach your goal and maximize your potentials
b) Put your goals into writing. Do not set goals on your mind. The act of writing them down makes it real and tangible. Moreover, when writing them down, always use the action words like will. For example, I will work with my business plan tomorrow not I might work with my business plan tomorrow. After putting them into writing, paste them on visible places where you can easily see to remind you. It could either be the wall, mirror, bed- side. This will guide you to come back and tick each reached goal.
c) Set goals that will motivate you. For motivation is the key to achieving goals. This is an inward leadership skill that you need to cultivate. Therefore, if you set goals that you will not be motivated by the outcome, it will be difficult to implement. Set goals that you will find exciting doing or implementing.
d) Make action plan. For you to reach your goal you must take action. Writing your goals down and ticking each after achievement will make you happy. So take action in achieving the set goals.
Develop your communication skills. To be able to fully maximize your potentials, you need to communicate it to the public. Nobody will know what you can do or your capabilities unless you tell them. You want to reach yourgoal, then develop this leadership skill. Communication must not only be verbal. Nevertheless, developing a good verbal communication skill is a very powerful tool. Learn to communicate what you are capable of doing to people. Communication is a skill that many people do not have. Many have gifts but to sale them to the public becomes very difficult. How then can you maximize your potentials through communication?
Firstly, make your point quickly and directly. Plan ahead of time what you have to say and go straight to the point. If it comes to situations where you need to prepare a speech, do it before time and make sure you study it repeatedly until it becomes part of you. Avoid using big words. Just keep it simple.
Secondly, to effectively communicate your potential, you need to put on a good attitude. Learn to be pleasant with people around you. For people will love to be around people with pleasant attitude. Treat people with respect. Avoid harsh words.
Be confident in yourself. Many do not know what they carry in the inside of them. They turn to be influenced by the factor of fear. Building confidence in yourself will help you to maximize your potentials. Confidence is the belief that you are able to do something. However, many in our world today belief they can do nothing. Having confidence in your idea is what will push you to communicate it to people. How then can you build self-confidence?
1) Know your idea or what you want to communicate very well and then act the part. The way you present yourself will speak if you are actually in mastery of what you are saying. Use body language when presenting your idea such as direct eye contact when talking.
2) Be well groomed. Make your appearance an asset- not a liability. Knowing what suits you best, your best colors will help you. Keep your shoes clean and polish, make sure your cloths are clean and well pressed. It is true we are in a free world and you can wear and look how you like but like it or not, man looks at the outward appearance. So make your appearance work for you. When you look better, you definitely will feel better. Dress like the part you will want to play and this will boost your self- esteem.
Develop your cognitive skills. These are those skills your brain uses to think, reason, remember, pay attention and read. These skills are many and they work together by taking incoming information, move it into the store of knowledge that is then used for the day-to-day works of life. These skills are expected to function at its maximum and failure of one will affect your reasoning level. These cognitive skills include;
Sustain/Attention cognitive skill. This skill helps you to be focused on a particular task for a period. Therefore, if this skill is not functioning well, you will find yourself leaving projects half way or setting goals and not achieving them. Another cognitive skill is selective/attention. This skill allows you to stay on track and focus despite distractions. So people whose selective cognitive skill is weak will easily be distracted. Attention/divided cognitive skill. This skill enables you to remember information when doing two things at a time. When this skill fails or is weak, you fine too much mistakes in accomplishing a task. There is the long-term/memory cognitive skill, which enables you to retain information in the past. With this skill, it enables you to keep records of your achievements but when it is weak, you easily forget things or events. Furthermore, there is the memory/working cognitive skill, which enables you to hold on to information in the process of using it. When this skill is weak, you find yourself lost in the middle of a presentation or you find yourself going back to your notes repeatedly. The logic and reasoning cognitive skill enables you to be creative and develop ways of solving programs. When this skill is functioning well, you find yourself always at the center of reference most especially with teamwork because you will always bring new ideas for the betterment of your team. However, when this skill is weak, you tend to copy others or find yourself asking questions like “what should I do”. The visual processing cognitive skill enables you to think with pictures. You see how beautiful that organization will be, how furnished your office will be. Lastly, processing speed is one of the cognitive skills. This skill enables you to achieve your goals quickly and accurately. But when this skill is weak, you find yourself always the last person to summit assignments. To be able to maximize your potentials, you need to build on these cognitive skills to ensure they function at their maximum.
Corporate development: Success in life depends upon the support and help of other people. No one makes it alone. Work hard to building successful corporate development for without it, one is doomed to loneliness. For successful people do not reach their goals alone. To fully maximize your potentials as an individual, you need people that will encourage and promote you. Corporate development is the ability to build a strong team that you will all work together to actualize your dreams. You need people that will buy or sponsor your idea. You need coaches. Creating a strong team to work with is one-step to corporate development. One of the leadership skills is to be able to manage and communicate well with your team members. Corporate development entails having a strong focus on the roles each member is to play, having a strong value to these roles, making communication simple and understanding, goal setting, know your team members very well (not only things surrounding the job but personal things as well), and learn to celebrate your successes and failures.
Be a decision maker. Learn to take good decisions. For you are the product of your choices and successful people tend to make decision quickly and change them rarely in order to reach their goals. To maximize your potentials, there are decisions that only you can make irrespective of the circumstances around you or what people say. It is not as if you just get up and make decision at your liking but there are some leadership skills a good leader needs to put into consideration before taking a decision. Firstly, you need to be clear about the decision you want to take. Boil the issue down to its simplest form. Secondly, you need to gather facts about the issue. Many make the mistake of taking a decision before all the facts are known. The fact that leaders take decision quickly does not ignore the idea of gathering fact. Do not take a hasty decision based on assumption. Thirdly, always put the risk factor into consideration. Ask yourself two questions like: what is the worst thing that can happen and what is the best thing that can happen if I take this decision. Furthermore, seek good counsel in that area you want to take that decision.
Equipping yourself with the above leadership skills will give you the confidence you need to face the world with your talents and reach your goal. The way to success has never been easy or will never be easy but as you build yourself with the above skills, you are bound to do exploit and make a living out of your potentials.